He who plants a tree plants hope.
Canst thou prophesy, thou little tree,
What the glory of thy boughs shall be?
He who plants a tree plants joy.
If thou couldst but know, thou happy tree,
Of the bliss that shall inhabit thee!
He who plants a tree plants peace.
Never hast thou dreamed, thou blessed tree,
Of the benediction thou shall be.
He who plants a tree plants youth.
Thou shall teach the ages, sturdy tree,
Youth of soul is immortality.
He who plants a tree plants love.
Heaven and earth help him who plants a tree
And his work its own reward shall be.

-- Excerpted from "Plant a Tree" by Lucy Larcom
Certain miracles that I beheld have haunted my memory ever since: a gray April morning,
when the almond blossoms, the flaming tulips, the young green of the vines, hung as if
painted on the motionless sky;  a summer night when the roses had an unearthly pallor
under a full moon, whose ghostliness was somehow one with their perfume and with the
phosphorescence of dew tipping their petals;  a day when the trees stood part
submerged in fog, into which leaves dropped slowly, slowly, one after another, and sank
out of sight.

-- H. G. Dwight, "Atlantic Monthly," 1912
For winter's rains and ruins are over, and all the season of snows and sins;
The days dividing lower and lower, the light that loses, the night that wins;
And time remembered is grief forgotten, and frosts are slain and flowers begotten,
And in green underwood and cover, blossom by blossom, the spring begins.

-- Algernon Charles Swinburne, "Atalanta in Calydon"
There's nothing like the first warm days of spring, when the gardener stops wondering if
it's too soon to plant the dahlias and starts wondering if it's too late.  Even the most
beautiful weather won't allay the gardener's notion that he is somehow too late, too
soon, or that he has too much stuff going on or not enough.  For the garden is the stage
on which the gardener exults and agonizes out every crest and chasm of the heart.

-- Henry Mitchell, "The Essential Earthman"
All through the long winter, I dream of my garden.  On the first day
of spring, I dig my fingers into the soft earth.  I can feel its energy
and my spirits soar.  -- Helen Hayes
The afternoon is bright, with spring in the air, a mild March afternoon, with the breath of
April stirring.  I am alone in the quiet patio, looking for some old untried illusion - some
shadow on the whiteness of the wall, some memory asleep on the stone rim of the
fountain, perhaps in the air, the light swish of some trailing gown.

-- Antonio Machado, "Selected Poems"
Spring makes its own statement, so loud and so clear
that the gardener can only be thought of as an
instrument, not the composer.  -- Geoffrey B.
Charlesworth
The most noteworthy thing about gardeners is that they are always optimistic,
always enterprising and never satisfied.  They always look forward to doing
better than they've ever done before.  -- Vita West
I think that no matter how old or infirm I may become, I
will always try to plant a garden in the spring.  Who can
resist the feelings of hope and joy that one gets from
participating in nature's rebirth?  -- Edward Giobbi
Serenity isn't freedom from the storm, but peace within the storm. -- Unknown
We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. -- Johann von Goethe
Spring Begins